


Alter Egos

by vinegardog



Category: Farscape
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 01:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3362723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinegardog/pseuds/vinegardog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quiet moments and flights of fancy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alter Egos

Characters are not mine.

Rated – PG for a couple of bad words but nothing more.

Word Count: 2380

Warning: Sappiness and shippiness aplenty

Setting: about 1 year after PKWars

Dedicated to d.sexton who was the John/Aeryn shipper par excellence

Thanks to A Damned Scientist for the beta 

 

**Alter Egos (PG)**

He started walking off Command the moment Pilot’s announcement came that Captain Braca of the newly built Peacekeeper Command Carrier Qujaga had requested to be put through to them with an urgent request.

She was used to that reaction.

She thought she understood him better than she understood herself: she knew how much he detested being involved in political intrigue and negotiations, so she didn’t mind fielding the communications that occasionally reached Moya from her old comrades on her own. She also knew that he felt guilty about leaving her to deal with these matters, but that, nonetheless, he could not help walking away whenever they arose. The events that had just preceded the Peacekeeper/Scarran peace treaty of a cycle ago still weighed heavily on him like an unmovable, stifling blanket he could not shrug off.

She had tried to reassure him that she didn’t mind him taking a step back from these unavoidable sporadic contacts with the Peacekeepers, but to no avail. She knew that the guilt - the feeling that he was letting her down – was always there gnawing at the back of his mind.

Admiring his retreating leather-clad backside, Aeryn sighed, asked Pilot to put Captain Braca on the main screen, set her features to inscrutable and prepared to listen to and handle the most recent one of the Peacekeeper Captain’s requests, whatever that might turn out to be.

***

Half an arn later, she found him in his favourite not so secret hiding place: maintenance bay two.

As always he was sitting on the floor. When, cycles ago, she had asked him why he refused to make use of the benches and stools scattered around the place opting instead for the hard floor, he had replied that he just loved the slight, living warmth and gentle hum of Moya vibrating through his body too much to pass up the opportunity to enjoy it by sitting elsewhere.

She knew it was absurd, but, if possible, she loved him even more for the awe he still felt for so many workaday things. His old bouts of wondrous surprise at humdrum everyday occurrences were still his constant companions, present even now after all that he had gone through since his arrival in this part of the galaxy and her life. And that to her was the most wondrous thing of all. Although whimsical and illogical, they were such an intrinsic part of him that she could not help but finding them endearing, even though she would, no doubt, have scorned them in most anybody else. Love truly had made her daft and tolerant of daftness, but, thanks to her Human, she had unashamedly embraced his and her own daftness and everything that went with it. There was no going back for her now. She had no regrets and no doubts and, if she was to be honest about it, it felt frelling liberating.

As always he was busy taking apart, studying, re-assembling or fixing mechanical parts. In this chaotic universe – he said – this made him feel like he still had a modicum of control over certain things, albeit trivial ones, and who was she to argue with him? So very little had been in their control for such a very long time that she understood perfectly well what he meant. It was just another one of a myriad of things she had learned from him: the ability to feel joy and pride in engaging her mind and her hands in physical work such as maintaining her Prowler or assisting Pilot with routine repairs or executing any of the dozens of little chores that living on a ship this size required of her on a daily basis. The concept of tech work as something to be cherished made her smile with sheepish shame at her blinkered and ignorant views of it back in the old days when she only thought of herself as a superior pilot and elite officer. John would doubtless say that so much water had flowed under the bridge since then and he would be absolutely right.

She stepped into the room and quietly approached him.

***

He heard her enter the maintenance bay and the familiar pang of guilt for having left her alone on Command flared once again in his chest. She had always been his strength, his one constant, but now more than ever she had set herself up to shield him with fierce “Aeryn” determination from all things Peacekeeper. She had told him over and over again that he was not to feel guilty for not wanting to be part of the negotiations side of things but he was stubborn and so was his guilt. If possible, he loved her even more for the leading role she had assumed in dealing with the outside world and trusted her decisions with blind, indisputable faith, no questions asked. Aeryn had become a diplomat and a good one at that – who would have thunk it? That idea always brought a proud smile to his face: she truly had become so much more than he could have ever expected her to be and it humbled him. Life with this woman had been and continued to be a wonderful roller coaster of surprises, one that made him dizzy, weak-kneed and giddy. One, he hoped, he would not get off for a very long time.

She stealthily approached and came to stand beside him, her quiet, solid presence steadying his guilt-ridden mind. He felt the gentlest touch of her fingers on his shoulder.

“So, what did they want this time?” He asked, not wanting to hear the answer but knowing he needed to ask anyway.

Her velvety dark voice caressed him and warmed him: “The usual – a favour. They want us to rendezvous with them in three solar days in the Klossian nebula and accompany them to a summit with the Nebari.”

“The Nebari?” He asked, dreading but needing further clarification.

“Things are getting tense out there on their border sector and the Peacekeepers hope they will be able to defuse the situation before it ignites into a war they fear they are bound to lose.” She paused and waited for John to digest the news before continuing: “They feel that the threat of John Crichton’s infamous wormhole weapon knowledge might help their cause and get the Nebari to back off. They have asked for our presence and I have granted it to them. Pilot is charting our course to the nebula as we speak.”

Of course she would comply with their request. John knew that more than anything else in the universe Aeryn wanted peace, even if that peace were to be obtained under threat of destruction and annihilation by wormhole. She wanted it for their child and she wanted it for their friends and she wanted it for both of them and she would not be denied, no matter what it took. The fact that he no longer possessed the knowledge to make an all-destructive weapon and that, even if he’d still had it, he would never have unleashed it again - not even for her - was of no consequence or deterrence to his wife. She would use anything in her power, including lies and deception about his perceived powers, to stop a galactic war and protect her family. And how in hell could a man not admire and respect his woman for those convictions? How in hell could he, John Crichton, not go along with her immovable will?

John wearily sighed.

“Fine. I just wish…” his words petered out.

“What is it you wish for, John? If what you wish for is to avoid war and further destruction, we have no choice in the matter, you know that.” She said sternly.

“Yeah. I know.” He sounded weak and unconvinced even to himself, so he steadied his voice and repeated: “I do know it, Aeryn, and of course you are right. We do have to help. Just ignore me. I’m bein’ … I’m bein’ cranky that’s all. Frustration and wishful thinking will do that to a guy in the long run, you know?” He extended his right hand towards her needing the comfort that her touch always unfailingly brought him.

Aeryn promptly grasped it. She squeezed it and lowered herself to sit beside him on the floor. Moya’s light warmth spread through her and she had to admit that he was right after all: it did feel wonderfully soothing and reassuring.

“Talk to me, John. What is it you wish for? ” He might open up to her or he might fight it. It might take a couple of microts or it might take a couple of arns. It didn’t matter which, she was prepared to wait until he was ready to tell her. Patience was something else time and loving this complicated man had taught her.

“I dunno… it’s hard to explain, Aeryn. I know - I KNOW! – that I am a lucky son of a bitch. I know it like I know every single line of your face or every crease in D’s fat little legs.” John looked long and hard at her, opening up his soul to her scrutiny through his unclouded, unwavering eyes. “I know that I am the luckiest son of a bitch in the universe because I have the two of you. You are my entire life and I can’t even imagine not having you, not even for a microt!” He leaned over and gently placed a kiss in the centre of her forehead to further strengthen the meaning of his words and pre-empt any possible furrows of doubt or worry that his words might have been about to raise there.

“But? Talk to me, John.” Aeryn probed again and waited.

“No buts, no real ones. I just… sometimes, you know, sometimes I just wish for the impossible, baby. I wish that all of us were somebody else, still together, but not us. Not the John Crichton and Aeryn Sun being used as pawns by the Peacekeepers, paraded around as deterrent to other races because of our apparent destructive power. I wish we were anonymous nobodies. I wish we were finally left alone. I wish I was Joe Bloggs and you were Jane Doe and screw the galaxy and the power plays and the political BS!”

“Joe Bloggs and… and Jane Doe?” Aeryn’s brow did furrow this time in her effort to understand her still at times indecipherable mate. “Who are they? Humans you knew back on Earth?”

John smiled at her confusion, which he secretly enjoyed even after so many cycles together and which, more often than not, he intentionally provoked in her by using Earth-isms he knew only too well she couldn’t possibly understand.

“No, not exactly. They are names used to indicate faceless people. Names used to indicate somebody in generic terms… male and female nobodies. Like the nobodies I wish we were.”

Finally starting to understand and seeing that this strange idea had put a hint of a smile on his erstwhile sombre face, Aeryn decided to play along with his flight of fancy. After all, what harm was there in going along with it if it made him feel better? She tilted her head, rested it against his shoulder and started playing with the thick, strong fingers of his right hand, still firmly held in her own. Playfully she asked:

“So, I would be known as Jane Doe-Bloggs… and what about D? What would D’Argo’s name be then? Would he still be D’Argo? D’Argo Doe- Bloggs?”

“Nah. We would have to change his name too.” John quieted for a moment, grateful for this time with her, grateful that once again his anger and upset seemed to be melting like snow in the Sun just by talking to her, grateful that his defiant nonsense once again was not being met with ridicule but love and understanding. “Have you noticed that our one year old son has still not bothered growing one strand of hair on his head, Aeryn?”

With ease born of experience, Aeryn took the sudden and apparent change of subject in her stride:

“Oh, I’m not too worried, John. He is like his father. He does things his own way and in his own time.” She teased. “One morning he will wake up and decide that it is time to grow some and after that we will have to brush flowing locks out of his eyes several times a solar day. Just wait and see.”

John laughed at that mental image. “Okay, well, since for the moment he’s still as bald as a football, along with our new names, we should change his to Charlie Brown or… or Mr Potato Head!”

She had no idea what a Charlie Brown or a Mr Potato Head was but she didn’t let it bother her:

“Mmm. Mr Potato Head Doe-Bloggs. That is somewhat of a mouthful, John, don’t you think?”

“Well then Charlie Brown Doe-Bloggs it is!” John declared.

As if his parents’ silly bantering about changing his name had somehow managed to raise him from his mid afternoon nap three tiers away, D’s crying interrupted their quiet moment, his wailing loudly conveyed to them by 1812 functioning as baby monitor.

John and Aeryn smiled at each other. Only too aware that their moment of escapism was over, they both stood up but, in unspoken, mutual agreement, held each other for a moment longer, allowing themselves the luxury to return to reality without too much of a rush.

After a couple of microts, Aeryn leaned up, kissed him and let go of him with a regretful sigh, then slipping back into being in charge as if into a second skin, she said: “I will go and get Charlie Brown Doe-Bloggs and bring him to Centre Chamber for his feed. You, Mr Bloggs, head over to Command and help Pilot with the co-ordinates we have been given for the rendezvous.” She headed for the corridor but stopped and turned when he called after her in that drawl of his he more often than not employed in the privacy of their bedchamber:

“Hey, baby? Be warned. Mr Joe Bloggs mighty fancies the prospect of gettin’ acquainted with Miss Doe later tonight…”

“Oh does he now? Well, Joe Bloggs’d better be ready to step up his game then because Jane Doe, unlike Aeryn Sun, is not about to settle for what John Crichton used to bring!” She winked at him and left.

The hearty, warm laugh from him that followed her out into the corridor made her smile all the way back to their quarters.

 

The End


End file.
